While the beef cooks, instructor Natalina Campagnolo helps her eager and hungry students prepare the rest of the meal that includes homemade gnocchi, roasted root vegetables and lemon, cranberry biscotti for dessert.

“My customers are foodies,” said Campagnolo. “They are people who love food, particularly people who are interested in Italian food culture.”

Campagnolo, whose maiden name is Bombino, has culinary accreditation, but her training and knowledge about Italian cuisine comes primarily from her family. Her parents came to Canada in the 1950s from San Giorgio Morgetto in southern Italy and brought with them recipes and traditions passed down for generations. Her father owned and operated Italian restaurants and cafés in Guelph and her mother was a professional cook but, more importantly, she prepared dinner for their family every night.

“A lot of people aren’t cooking any more and I feel very fortunate to have been raised with that kind of a food history,” she said. “I want to share it with people. My slogan is ‘bringing homemade back one recipe at a time.’ ”

In 1997, her husband, Robert, was transferred to Italy by his former employer Hewlett Packard. The family lived in Milan for two and a half years and embraced the culture but she saw how many time-honoured traditions were giving way to the rapid pace of modernity.

“I invited my husband’s Italian teacher to my home to teach me how to make Milanese risotto,” she said. “The day before she came I phoned her and asked how much stock I had to make for the risotto and she said ‘Stock? We just use the bouillon cubes.’ ”

Campagnolo took the time to make the stock just like her mother had taught her and was preparing dinner for her children the next day when the woman arrived.

“She said you’re Canadian but your kitchen is Italian,” Campagnolo said. “It was quite a compliment because Italians are very particular about their food. Nobody can make anything as good as their mama or their nonna.”

Her time in Milan reignited her love for her Italian heritage and her passion for the food that is central to the region’s cultural identity.

“When we returned in late 1999, I decided this is what I want to do — to share my Italian food culture,” said Campagnolo.

She started taking cooking classes and, in 2009, completed a five-week course at a small culinary academy. In September 2011, Campagnolo opened La Cucina di Natalina with a fully equipped gourmet kitchen in their family home at 3 Darren Place, in the city’s north end.

“My core course is a six-week Classic Italian Course, which is once a week for six consecutive weeks,” she said. “I just introduced flexible classes where you can do the six-week course over a span of months.”

She also offers a four-week seasonal advanced course, private and semi-private classes, as well as one-day workshops.

“I have a make-and-take lasagna workshop where a person can come in and make a fresh lasagna with fresh pasta,” she said. “They come in for a few hours and go home with an entrée to feed a family of four.”

She also books interactive dining events for birthdays or other special occasions.

“They get recipes, instructions, a four-course meal and they take home all the leftovers,” she said. “They can bring their own wine or beer or whatever they like. There is no corkage fee.”

All the ingredients in her recipes are locally sourced and during the summer most are produced by Robert and Natalina Campagnolo themselves.

“Bob’s my gardener,” she said. “We have a huge garden with fruit trees, herbs, vegetables and flowers. All the sauces I sell are from the garden. The only ingredients that aren’t from the garden are the olive oil and the salt. My recipes are not really difficult or complicated. It is basically the Mediterranean diet, which is one of the healthiest in the world.”

Two students, Tyrone Dee and Donna Bell, roll and dimple the gnocchi with a fork for that traditional look and to give the sauce something to cling to.

“Everything is very hands-on,” Campagnolo said. “It is as hands-on as you want it to be. If you choose to observe that is fine.”

Dee and Bell both enjoy learning new healthy recipes they can prepare for family and friends.

“Most cooking schools are not hands-on,” Dee said. “You can watch somebody drive, but until you get behind the wheel, you have no idea what it is like on the road.”

Mothers preparing daily meals for the family has fallen out of fashion, especially with modern economic pressures forcing both parents to work.

“I am a professional woman,” Bell said. “I run my own business and I still cook dinner for my family every night.”

The benefits for families preparing and sharing meals together is widely recognized.

“A company in Waterloo that provides marriage and family counselling is going to be incorporating my workshops into their counselling services,” Campagnolo said. “Families with marital problems will be cooking and sitting down to a meal they have produced together.”

Campagnolo is an active member of Taste Real Guelph, a local organization that promotes local food and slow food culture.

“I sit down with my family for a meal every day,” she said. “What I teach is my life and how I was raised. What I would like to do is kind of create a movement. Maybe I’m unique or maybe I’m crazy, but I think it is coming. I think there is a movement for local and for good food but I think it is going to be a big job to educate people.”

Entrepreneurs is a series profiling local businesses and the people behind them. It appears Wednesdays. To suggest a subject for the series, contact our newsroom at 519-823-6060 or email editor@guelphmercury.com.